Hammer Attack Lands SF Man 142 Years

Convicted felon had two previous strikes

Receive the latest local updates in your inbox

A San Francisco man got a lengthy prison sentence for attacking his wife with a hammer.

A man convicted of trying to kill his estranged wife with a hammer in 2008 at her home near San Francisco's Twin Peaks was sentenced Friday to 142 years to life in state prison, a district attorney's spokesman said.

Steve Acosta, 59, used a hammer to attack Kimberly Celoni, on April 16, 2008, at her home on Glenview Drive, where he had also repeatedly threatened and vandalized her property in the days leading up to the assault, prosecutors said.

Celoni was left with permanent cognitive and physical injuries from the attack.

Acosta, who had two prior convictions for assault in 1974 and 1986, was convicted on Aug. 6 of 20 of the 22 charges filed against him in connection with the attack, acquitting him only of two of the criminal threat charges.

Because of the state's three strikes law, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jerome Benson handed down the lengthy sentence, district attorney's spokesman Seth Steward said.

Both Celoni and her daughter addressed the court at this morning's sentencing hearing, Steward said.

Acosta's defense attorney, Floyd Andrews, said following the conviction in August that his client was a recovering addict who began using drugs again after having back surgery and getting painkillers.

He and Celoni had been married for 11 years, but after using drugs again, he began accusing her of having affairs, even one with a man who had been dead for years, Andrews said.